Success for Dentsu Aegis Network SA at the 2020 New Gen Awards

The awards are the largest celebrated digital media awards in the country honouring the South African creative agency teams for their innovative use of social and digital media and cutting-edge use of online media and tools. In addition, the awards acknowledge corporate companies and their in-house marketing teams from across the region for work on campaigns that help promote their organisations and brands in ground-breaking ways.

Two of DAN’s local agencies were awarded a total of five awards on the night. Vizeum South Africa won three awards in three individual categories and digital content marketing agency John Brown Media South Africa took home two awards in two categories.

Winning silver in the Best Revenue Generating Marketing Campaign or Event was Vizeum SA for Stella Artois '#SaveMySpot'. In a bid to spark a movement in South Africa during the Covid-19 SA lockdown, Stella Artois created an online e-commerce platform where consumers could buy a monetary voucher for their favourite local restaurant or bar. The voucher was designed to be utilised post-lockdown when their favourite spots were able to trade again. Not only did this money go directly to the business, Stella Artois also committed to add an additional 50% of the value of each first voucher purchased, which meant the consumer enjoyed 150% of the value that they paid for the voucher.

With the primary goal of the paid campaign to generate mass awareness and to encourage customers to visit the rallyforyourbarandrestaurant.com website and purchase a digital voucher. Together, South Africans and Stella Artois raised in excess of R1m during phase one of the campaign. Providing immediate financial relief to the registered businesses.

“In a time where the world is in a crisis, Stella Artois wanted to ensure that we are having a positive impact on our industry, which is why this was a call for our brand to contribute to helping our industry partners and fellow South-Africans, the restaurants, bars, taverns and pubs in South Africa. We were able to raise over R1m together with the public! We will continue to drive initiatives that have a positive impact for the industry,” said Estee Burger, marketing manager (Budweiser and Stella Artois) at AB InBev.

In addition, a second silver was awarded to Vizeum in the Best Use of Podcast/Vlog to Promote a Brand or Event category, as well as a bronze award in the Best Integrated Marketing Campaign by an Agency category for AB InBev’s Carling Cup 2019.

After seven years since the launch in 2011, the Carling Black Label Cup event’s appeal began to fade, impacting relevance and sales. In 2018, the Cup was postponed, resulting in greater sales and relevance losses. Together with AB InBev, Vizeum SA re-launched with a new mission – to Change the Game. The team wanted to shape football’s future and give fans a voice in that future by proposing a set of game-changer innovations such as Twitter determining the man of the match, selecting the substitutes and lastly captain selection. With an average of 24,000 daily votes, three game changes were selected by the public.

“Whilst awards like these are always a testament to the great work done by my team, they often don’t give the ‘behind the scenes’ reality that was required in making these campaigns the success they are. The many hours of work, effort, collaboration, resilience and sacrifice that go into an accolade like this is what makes me very proud to work alongside an incredibly talented team that make the Vizeum brand what it is. To all Vizeum staff that were involved, well done in showcasing what media excellence looks like,” said Byron John, MD at Vizeum Johannesburg.

Scooping silver in the Excellence in Content Marketing category (sponsored by JustPalm) was John Brown Media SA (JBSA) for Capitec’s Move campaign. The campaign was designed to help persuade Capitec clients to use their Capitec account as their primary account and encourage new clients to sign up which resulted in over one million new accounts opened during the course of the campaign and over 100,000 account holders made Capitec their primary bank.

Old Mutual Corporate’s MiNDSPACE mailer series won JBSA a bronze in the best online newsletter category. John Brown evolved MiNDSPACE from a bi-annual print title into a dynamic omnichannel brand with an always-on digital strategy comprising weekly mailers and social media. Results showed that the content resonates with a C-suite audience that includes senior management, directors and partners.

“We are really proud to have won these two digital awards for two of our valued clients, showing that powerful content marketing delivered on the right platform resonates with audiences and leads to ROI,” said Lani Carstens, group managing director, John Brown Media South Africa.